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[Doof]

Anybody know of a good utility that will convert various video formats to WMV? DivX and Quicktime especially. I don't necessarily need one tool that will handle every video format out there, but it has to convert to WMV.

Anyone?

[JimH]

Not sure, but check ffmpeg.

[robydago]

AutoMKV can handle WMV, x264 and Xvid

[JimB]

After trying many solutions and purchasing several I have settled on BadSpammer. It is inexpensive, frequently upgraded and does everything I've asked of it. (Sort of like MC!)

Best is to get it as part of the AVS Video Tools 4 in 1 Kit. This includes what is, for me, a real gem, "AVS Video Remaker" which splits sources without recoding. As an example of the power of the Remaker it has allowed me to extract segments from a DVD-RAM (recorded from our DVD recorder). After extraction I can use the Video Converter to convert to WMV. A good feature of Video Converter I've just discovered is that it enables multiple instances to be opened simultaneously. Therefore if I have 5 files to convert, each taking say an hour, I can set them all up to run at night.

Available at http://www.avsmedia.com/VideoTools/index.aspx. They are about to release a Vista version of the Suite.

Jim B

[glynor]

AutoMKV can handle WMV, x264 and Xvid

That's what I was going to suggest.  It's beta, but it works well, and the developer is awesome.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=113811

Plus, it's free and that helps!

[robydago]

the developer is awesome.

You know, Italians do it better!
He's from Italy. I found out when I wrote to him in English and he replied in Italian.

[Lasse_Lus]

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

[glynor]

If all you care about is WMV and you want the bomb-snazizzle of encoders, you might want to check out Expression.  It's from Microsoft, and I just saw a nice demo today from a guy who works at Microsoft at my conference.  It looks nice.  A lot like Apple's Compressor, but for Windows Media (only, of course -- thanks Microsoft).  I was really struck how much the UI looks like Apple's Aperture meets Compressor, but it was quite feature rich.

It supports a wide variety of input formats, including Quicktime (finally), MPEG (various), WMV, and AVI.  Provides nice previews of before and after the compression, and gives you every option pre-processing and codec option you'll need.

If I was willing to use WMV, I'd be looking into it.  I'm not though.   

[robydago]

Lasse,
did you try them on windows?
I did:
SUPER is painfully slow
mediacore seems better, but it's rather buggy

[Doof]

If I was willing to use WMV, I'd be looking into it.  I'm not though.   

I hear ya. I just installed Vista on my home PC, fired up MS Media Center and set up my Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender. I'm starting to think I might switch over to that from using MC on my HTPC. It's got it's pros and cons.

Pros:

• It's gorgeous
• By using my Xbox for media streaming, I can get rid of a PC out of my livingroom which will save on noise, electricity and the cost of upgrading it to actually make it run MC's Theater View well.
• Playlist/Playing Now creation and editing are much easier than in MC's TV

Cons:

• It has really limited file format support - so I'd have to convert everything over to a format it supports. This might be the dealbreaker for me. I know I can convert everything over to WMA Lossless and always go back later if I want, but I'm not sure if it supports gapless playback. If not, I'll have to decide how important that is to me.
• It's nowhere near as customizable as MC is. I'd pretty much be stuck using whatever "view schemes" MS decided I need. Which in my case, is probably fine.

 
So really, my choice of format is being driven by my desire to use MCE, basically. Although I was leaning towards WMV anyways because I'm getting really tired of having video formats that aren't taggable, so every time I start a new library, I have to re-tag all of my video files. I know there are other formats out there that are taggable, but WMV is kind of the sweet spot that's taggable and readable by MCE. :P

And honestly, even though MCE's interface is nicer, it's really the secondary reason I'm switching. The big reason is that my current HTPC is dog-slow and noisy. Last time I checked, upgrading it to an acceptable level would have been in the neighborhood of $300, which isn't bad, but if I have the Xbox 360 there already, I figure I might as well use it.

[ThoBar]

I cant tell you what it is or where to find it, but I know there is an MCE plugin out there that will convert on the fly from avi to xmv. It works seamlessly when used with the 360 as well.

But thats enough of MCE support.  Hang out in hope of JR getting that 360 extender thing happening (referenced somewhere in these forums). Thats what I'm waiting for!
 
**HINT**   

C.